St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham
The Birmingham Cathedral ( The Metropolitan Cathedral and Basilica of Saint Chad or St. Chad 's Cathedral) is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham in the English city of Birmingham. It is dedicated to St. Chad, Bishop of York in the 7th century. The church was designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and substantially completed in 1841. She received in 1850 the status of a cathedral and is next to Downside Abbey one of only two Basilicae minores in England. This is St. Chad's the first Roman Catholic cathedral, which was built in England after the Reformation.
History
The construction of the St. Chad 's Church took place at the instigation of the local Vicar Apostolic and Bishop Thomas Walsh. It was planned from the beginning as a cathedral. The foundation stone was laid in October 1839. The church was consecrated on 21 June 1841. The official survey of the cathedral was however only in 1850 by Pope Pius IX. , Because only at that time the Catholic dioceses were established in England again. Finally, the Diocese of Birmingham in 1911 was elevated to archdiocese.
In the cathedral the relics of the patron saint of the church are preserved in the ciborium over the altar. It involves some long bones of St. Chad. These were originally housed in the Cathedral of Lichfield and have about 1538 saved by the Prebendary Arthur Dudley before the looting during the Reformation. Dudley gave the relics on to his nieces, they passed on to their families. It was not until 1651 this appeared again when the Farmer Henry Hodgetts died and the priest on his deathbed told them. The priest took the relics itself and brought them to the seminary of St. Omer in northern France. In the 19th century the relics came from there about Aston Hall to Bishop Walsh, who had just to decide what saint should receive his new cathedral. So it happened that the relics of the saint, the apostle of the Midlands in the seventh century, were deposited above the altar. The Birmingham Cathedral is the only cathedral in England, which has the relics of the patron saint above the altar. Investigation of the relics by the archaeological laboratory at the University of Oxford in 1985 showed that all actually originate from the 7th century and thus from the time of St. Chad up on a bone.
In 1941 the cathedral by Pope Pius XII was. explained as a church with significant historical connections to the Minor Basilica. On official occasions since the Tintinnabulum and Padiglione are presented as symbols for such a basilica on the steps of the altar.
Architecture and Facilities
St. Chad's was by the English architect Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852), one of the most important architects of the Gothic Revival designed. The cathedral was his first great church.
St. Chad's replaced a smaller church, which was built in 1808 at the same location. Due to the local conditions and because brick had to be used as the main building material, resulted in the design of the church restrictions. For details such as tracery and door frames Bath stone could be used. Since Pugin wanted to build the interior as open and generous, he was based stylistically on the German Gothic brick and chose the type of a hall church. The west front was given a two-tower facade with narrow towers similar to those of the Lübeck Cathedral. A provided by him higher, the overall proportions of the outer walls -bringing into balance the third tower as a crossing tower was unfortunately not performed. In view of the strong gradient of the site to the east Pugin saw under the building a large crypt before that should be used primarily as a burial place for parishioners and clergy and is now used as a rehearsal space for the choir.
Inside, the nave is almost twice as high as wide. Typical of a hall church, it has very high, supported by thin pillars arcades. These are decorated in the chancel with colored and golden leaves and with a helical pattern and Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus carry the words Dominus Deus Sabaoth ( "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts "). The wooden ceiling with the curved, blue-painted roof is decorated with monograms and floral patterns, as they are also found on the ceilings of the old cathedrals of Ely and Peterborough.
Pugin designed the interior part itself He designed a high altar under an elaborately worked out ciborium and the bishop's throne made of oak, which is lined with green velvet and bears the arms of the diocese. As one of his style most typically reproducing works of the rood screen no longer present in the church was ( see below). Other furnishings such as the pulpit from the 16th century and the medieval choir stalls are from different churches in Belgium and Germany, and were collected and donated by the sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbury John Talbot.
The stained glass window in the choir of the church are the work of William Warrington. Other windows, metalwork, furniture and garments were made by the company John Hardman of Birmingham. Hardman was a parishioner of St. Chad's and founded in 1854, the Choir of the Cathedral Community. Four generations of his family are buried in the crypt.
In 1932, St Chad's was extended by, designed by Pugin's grandson Sebastian Pugin Powell St. Edward 's Chapel. The naming of the chapel to commemorate the first Archbishop Edward Ilsley and its patron saint Edward the Confessor. The windows of the chapel depict the history of the relics of St. Chad and those who have served the church. Also, some great ecclesiastical coats of arms are shown. In the 1960s, a number of articles of the interior were removed and the interior was repainted without reference to the original design. Pugin's rood screen was passed on to the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity in Reading, more pieces of equipment went to other churches.
Organ
The organ was built in 1968 by organ builder Nicholson and reorganized by organ builder Walker in 1993 and renewed. The instrument has 40 stops on three manuals and pedal. The Registertrakturen electrically.